As a side bar to our discussion on cycling and its associated traffic challenges, here’s a heads up on Hub on Wheels, a charity bike ride with 10, 30, and 50 mile routes around the City of Boston that allows entrants to cycle the length of Storrow, sans automobile.
Ride date: Sunday, September 27, 2009.
Route Map
Please share widely!
and even gotten chided by David himself about it. My understanding is that James Storrow donated the land to be a park and specifically stated they were not to build a highway on the land. A short time later, a highway honoring him forever was built.
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p>Check out the part of the Esplanade near Charlesgate. See the park accessible to people without cars — it’s the part north of the northmost road. Oh, you can’t? That’s because it’s not there — all non-auto use of the park has been pushed to a cantilevered bridge over the Charles because the entire park was dedicated solely to automobiles. Follow Charlesgate south. That’s acres and acres of potential ball fields, community gardens, small outdoor performance areas, or urban wildlife regions which are instead more road.
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p>My question: which Bostonians are benefiting from Storrow Drive? Which Bostonians would benefit from putting Storrow on a diet — two lanes in each direction including ramps, and reducing some of the flyovers to take back more parkland.
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p>Heck, access to the park is terrible. A number of the bridges have stairs, and many are in bad repair. They’re too far apart. The result is that instead of a Central Park or Emerald Necklace, we have a true parkway, which doesn’t serve park users very well at all.
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p>P.S. Legally, bicycles are allowed on Storrow Drive 24.7.365. I woudldn’t recommend it to any cyclist, but legally they are allowed. Storrow Drive isn’t a limited access highway (some people access their garage on Storrow, and streets like Berkley and Mugar aren’t ramped), and there are not signs at every entrance prohibiting bicycles. Both criteria must be met for bicycles to be prohibited by law.
His wife too. The fact that it was turned into a highway, I have always assumed, was a traditional Boston “screw you” from his political opponents, whoever they may have been at the time. Or perhaps that is just a nice local politics bedtime story. If anyone has any more information, please chime in.
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p>The Wikipedia entry, typically, appears to be the best readily available information.
but it’s to have nice views for their dormitories, Storrow would be a tunnel underneath. Not sure how that’s going to work with the water issues that the road has now. Not exactly sure if that park is considered public or private though. It’s an interesting idea. You can have a path for walkers and bikers. I lived in Newton Corner for a while and always biked Storrow, but it was often difficult riding with walkers, it seemed that a walking area and a roller blade/biking path would have been nice, instead of calling out “on you left” or “on your right” as you come up to people walking so they know you’re coming. Plus you don’t have to reduce your speed.
I remember seeing a postcard of the esplanade, and the road was there, but it was a boulevard like Comm Ave.
What if Storrow Drive were converted to a two lane in each direction boulevard, with metered parking, traffic lights instead of flyovers?
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p>1. There’d be a source of revenue to help fund the park.
2. The road itself would take up a lot less space, particularly at interchanges. This would free up space for the park users to use the park.
3. The road would be a slower way to get from Zakim to A-B and all points in between, but still faster than Comm. It would be more like Mem Drive.
4. There’d be places for cops to hang out (unlike now) which would force people to drive more reasonably since they couldn’t race.
5. There’d be more places for park users to cross (every intersection), and that wouldn’t require stairs or long ramps.
6. You could “ramp up” Storrow to have a proper intersection with Mass Ave, allowing both N and S Mass Ave traffic to access Storrow both E and W-bound.
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p>There are some tricky bits. There’d be queues built up for left hand turns off of Storrow, as well as turns onto Storrow. You’d need more queueing space to do it, and finding that space isn’t easy. Otherwise, you’d have gridlock on the next street south — Comm Ave.
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p>Still, it is an interesting idea.
Now I’ll never get anywhere!
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p>Storrow is the one road I can take to Boston that actually moves. I agree it makes the waterfront less attractive, but it’s rather essential for the flow of traffic, yes?
No single road is essential in an urban grid for the flow of traffic, by design.
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p>Does it result in a higher throughput of autos? Yes.
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p>Removing (or reducing) it would almost certainly (a) result in more autos on Boston surface streets, (b) result in more autos using Mem Drive, (c) result in a slower auto commute for those who continue to use Storrow, and (d) result in a slight increase in MBTA ridership because the driving alternatives are worse. It would also (e) almost certainly increase property values along that stretch, (f) increase the human-accessible area of the park by dozens (100s?) of acres, (g) increase the health and enjoyment of Boston residents, and (h) be in line with the actual donor’s wishes.
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p>Building Storrow Drive wasn’t something for nothing, and reducing/removing it wouldn’t be either. There’s a clear trade-off, and it’s one we as a society would have to decide.
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p>Having additional gridlock on your streets does this how?
This is (now) widely understood. When the response to congestion is more capacity, the cost of driving goes down, and demand increases to fill the void. Does the function work in reverse? That is, if capacity is decreased does demand decrease? Sure. How much? Nobody knows.
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p>Still, additional gridlock neither increases nor decreases health or enjoyment. But larger, more accessible, more enjoyable parks — particularly long ones like the Esplanade — are enjoyable and encourage residents to walk, jog, run, cycle, skate, or otherwise burn calories and tone muscles. That does improve health.
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p>It’s no surprise that safe and enjoyable pedestrian access to work, shopping, housing, schools, and parks is tightly coupled with community health, and given that total health costs related to obesity are skyrocketing, the imperative is even stronger.
If Storrow Drive were to close Cambridgeport would probably get a lot more traffic through it, since folks would be heading to the BU bridge. This certainly effects the health of residents there. By closing Storrow, you may reduce overall flow slightly, but your mostly just pushing it to other streets. Why should folks who live on Mass Ave or in Cabridgeport be forced to breath a bunch of exhaust just so some wealthy Bostonians can have their real estate appreciate?
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p>Heavily trafficed streets are less pedestrian friendly than lighter trafficed ones. So closing a highway with no pedestrian traffic on it and forcing the cars on to streets where people walk makes it less walkable.
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p>Also many Bostonians drive too, so they will be sitting in more traffic along with out of towners.